Anyone else try this? I preordered on a whim, first time ever. So far I'm really enjoying the game, it's just your classic European style RPG. Plays a little bit like an MMO in terms of tactics. Engaging with a decent atmosphere and storyline.

I felt safe preordering because Bioware has yet to disappoint me, and my other Bioware games are by far my favorites (ME, Jade Empire, NWN2...). I usually like Bioware games because they work great straight out of the box and I don't have to spend hours troubleshooting minute technical issues - that is NOT the case with this one. You can't even get to the tech support forum without logging into the website, and the problems from launch sound very much like a buggy MMO or something released by another company. Nothing game breaking for me yet, it's just odd to see something so user-hostile from this particular company.

Still, I'd recommend the game for RPG addicts. Decent enough port to PC from the consoles, and for a video game the acting isn't half bad. Decent price at release too - $44 on Amazon.

I would really love to get this game, but alas, my computer falls below the "recommended" specs.

It's a poignant moment in a geeks life when the computer is no longer capable of running the latest games because of the need to buy things like diapers and clothes for the munchkins.

I got it as well. I think my only issue with it so far has been the fact that my character is spattered with blood -constantly-. It blows my mind. Otherwise I'm having fun with it.

I'm considering getting it for the 360, anyone tried that version yet?

Not I. When I saw that it was for PC, I got it for that and never looked back. Console versions of RPG's that weren't built for a controller in the first place usually don't turn out well for me.

I got it as well. I think my only issue with it so far has been the fact that my character is spattered with blood -constantly-. It blows my mind. Otherwise I'm having fun with it.You can turn that off, it's in the first set of options I think - persistent gore or some such. Doesn't change battle effects.

Haha, awesome Kanyli. Thanks. I'm not sure I'm going to take it off yet, but its good to know it -can- be taken off.

You know, I've always liked Bioware games because they worked straight out of the box, smooth and almost bugless. This is a throwback to say, crap Sony might put out in an EQ patch. I'm enjoying the game, but I can't believe how rough this feels for Bioware. I felt safe preordering because of the quality of older games. No regrets, just shock at shoddy quality control.

I haven't really had any problems with it on PC, though it did crash once or twice when I've tried to alt tab while on a load screen. I was a bit shocked when an NPC tried to peddle downloadable content to me in the game though, and was a bit bothered by it.

I'm hoping this is EAs influence, and not a sign of what Bioware has become.

I can't stay connected to the game servers, not that it's necessary. I turned off the connected because I kept getting dropped messages. Everything else with my Internet is fine, including other games.

The Bioware boards are a mess of issues and poor testing. The downloadable content seems to be a big part of it all.

Im lazy, anyone happen to be sitting conveniently on the minimum specs of this game? Ive been dying to try it for forever (being a true Baldur's Gate geek), but my PC is ready to be put out to pasture.

Windows XP Minimum Specifications
OS: Windows XP with SP3
CPU: Intel Core 2 (or equivalent) running at 1.4Ghz or greater
AMD X2 (or equivalent) running at 1.8Ghz or greater
RAM: 1GB or more
Video: ATI Radeon X850 128MB or greater
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT 128MB or greater
DVD ROM (Physical copy)
20 GB HD space

Windows Vista Minimum Specifications
OS: Windows Vista with SP1
CPU: Intel Core 2 (or equivalent) running at 1.6Ghz or greater
AMD X2 (or equivalent) running at 2.2GHZ or greater
RAM: 1.5 GB or more
Video: ATI Radeon X1550 256MB or greater
NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT 256MB or greater
DVD ROM (Physical copy)
20 GB HD space

Recommended Specifications
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz Processor or equivalent
RAM: 4 GB (Vista) or 2 GB (XP)
Video: ATI 3850 512 MB or greater
NVIDIA 8800GTS 512 MB or greater
DVD ROM (Physical copy)
20 GB HD space

Okay, so I figured I could run the game on my slightly less than "recommended" specs, and its true I can. Just turned down a few things and it runs very well.

Holy crap this is a good game.

I love it. I clocked in about 50 hours played on my first play through the game. Started a new character and I'm already finding stuff I didn't do last time around. So much fun.

Crikies Mdana, get some fresh air! :)

I think I have, uhh, 3 hours? Heh. Maybe more now, not sure, tis the season of rapidly approaching finals and group projects. Have to focus on that rather than a game.

I kept telling myself that I'd stop after finishing a certain part of the game. 2-3 am would roll around and still going. Terrible.

Thanks Cloudwalker. It seems I can just squeeze in at the recommended minimum specs. Ill give it a whirl.

I'd be doing the same thing if I could, so I can completely understand where you are coming from.

Kiv - totally worth checking it out if your system can run it. My system is in the middle of the two ranges of specs, so just tinker with the settings bit and you will hopefully be able to run it.

Alt-itus here, and busy at work, so I'm maybe a third of the way through. I'm playing as a warrior, thinking that would give me more control over combat without jumping characters. The difficulty level in the game is surprising though, and I think I spend more time pausing battles and constantly switching characters for it to matter. Next replay I think I want to be a rogue, since both NPC rogues drive me a little bit nuts.

I had the same thought about the rogues. I am playing a warrior my first time through, and it breaks my heart to walk past those chests that my either my rogue cant open or when I didnt have a rogue in the group. Bleh.

The ridiculous amount of locked things in dragon age hurts my feelings. I usually jack my party rogue's cunning and lockpicking because I get angry when I can't unlock a chest. @_@

As a dyed in the wool Baldur's Gate fan burned out on WoW and unable to tolerate DDO's 'world of suck' interface, you guys are going to make me buy this... right before finals :/ ;)...

Regards,
Nydia

As well you should.. it absolutely rocks.

This game very much feels like a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, along with Neverwinter Nights and KoTOR. I love it.

I bought the 360 version so I would be sitting comfortably while I played rather than in front of my PC. So far no complaints, I love the story.

This game very much feels like a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, along with Neverwinter Nights and KoTOR. I love it.
A thin, sickly successor, but only because of the greatness that preceded it. Still a solid game.

For what it's worth, most locked chests only have junk in them. I noticed a rogue party has more money, but nothing game breaking and I haven't seen any incredible magic loot that was locked up.

They've mashed the three together and taken some of the good and bad elements about each. Mana instead of memorized spells from NWN/BG, a more linearly directed storyline from KoTOR and NWN than the massiveness of BG, not even sure why there are gear sets, but I'm not really miffed about that I don't think.

I just wish the spell caster robes didn't look hideous. And I also wish there were more than three or so distinct graphics. There are so many sets of awesome looking heavy plate (Blood Dragon, Wade's dragon scale stuff, Juggernaut, Legion, etc) and no robes. At all. Its kind of upsetting.

Instead of studying for two tests today, I was up till 1AM on this game. Although I stopped studying at 10:30 so I could take a 20 minute "break".

Thats how I justified it anyway.

Pity it wasnt just 20 minutes.

Thats how it goes down for me. "Oh once I'm done this quest I'll stop". 3 hours later...still playing...long since done with the quest. @_@

Was running errands today, and while at Targhay picked it up on whim. Am thinking about making a Rogue first, just because of the posts about locked stuff and also being used to playing one in other games.

I blame all of you for this expense! :p

I have been sick the past two days, for real sadly but today I logged 6:30hrs of game time. It's fun but I'm going to force myself to smaller time chunks of play, there are other games to play afterall MW2!!!!! :)

The 360 version came with a Star Trek game, did the PC version have the same? In addition to free downloadable content like armor and some golem and a keep.

Some free DLC in the PC version - I didn't get the keep, but I go the Golem, armor, memory band, and some boots. There's another ring you can get if you upload a character with the free character creator, +1 to all stats. The keep was free with some versions, I think? Not mine though. Sounds like $7 for maybe an hour of quests.

Caster and specialized gear (mostly rogue) is scarce in the game. I'm holding out faith in Bioware that they'll fix this in a patch.

Dorgh. There are so many choices to make that I want to do differently from my last playthrough but whenever I get to them I balk. I think Bioware has actually made a morality system that feels grey. @_@

Sounds like the Witcher - I loved that morality system. You never knew what was good or bad.

Stole it off the intarwebz, and loving it so far. I do however have a lot of complaints. The armor/weapon system is extremely unsatisfying. It doesn't feel intuitive, and the equipment is just not that interesting. In fact, the entire item system is a bit meh. I found that by selling off everything I couldn't immediately identify greatly increased my enjoyment.

And the quest/codex interface! OH MY GOD! Could they have made it ANY more counter intuitive? I grit my teeth every time I press J to try to find a note I found on the ground in my fucking LIBRARY! BG2 had it better: Put the note in the inventory.

Stole it off the intarwebz, and loving it so far. I do however have a lot of complaints. The armor/weapon system is extremely unsatisfying. It doesn't feel intuitive, and the equipment is just not that interesting. In fact, the entire item system is a bit meh. I found that by selling off everything I couldn't immediately identify greatly increased my enjoyment.

And the quest/codex interface! OH MY GOD! Could they have made it ANY more counter intuitive? I grit my teeth every time I press J to try to find a note I found on the ground in my fucking LIBRARY! BG2 had it better: Put the note in the inventory.

They ran out of money for an armor/weapon system and a quest interface designer because people pirate their games :(

I picked up this game last night and played the mage intro area for a couple of hours before heading to bed - my initial comments:

The good:

I love the combination of the WoW-type hotkey bar and the automatic freeze when combat starts and ability to do 'turn-based' combat. For someone with limited use of their hands, this is a huge bonus.

I like that the markers on the minimap aren't too obtrusive and that you're not given explicit instructions on where to find people, etc.

I like that right away you're given the choice whether to help out mister hapless 'about to get the spiritual lobotomy' and his even more useless girlfriend or throw them under the bus (I'm just looking for the right moment and the bus driver atm ;) ) and while the *plot* so far may be relatively simplistic (and excessively, well, 'epic' compared to Baldur's Gate) one does have a sense of having actual *moral* choices (also, despite being a mage, I jacked up coersion or cunning or whatever it's called and have already put it to good use)

I like the highly customizable spell/attribute development and specialization.

The bad:

The movement interface is terrible, and I mean *terrible*, for folks like me who use a trackball 2-handed (and I don't see it being much better for those who have/can use a mousewheel). The only way I have any real control over my movements is to use the 'swimming' motion in WoW, holding down both buttons constantly - otherwise I'm moving, *then* turning, and get stuck in corners a lot. This sucked particularly hard in that tutorial area 'The Harrowing' where I was constantly about to go over a cliff or facing the wrong way in combat and eating flank attacks and makes tight spaces a nightmare.

The claymation 'creepy-realistic' first person dialogue cinematics aren't to my tastes. I far preferred the less graphics-intensive, but consistent, cartoon dialogues. I've also noticed that, at least in the intro areas, none of the plot-advancing dialogues seem to make any difference whatsoever - if you don't get the response/lead you'd hoped for on your initial interaction, you can just go back and talk to the guy. Greater diversity in responses might have been more interesting here.

The amusing: In the mage intro, if you're female, the Templar who has a crush on you is named 'Cullen'. I guess it goes without saying that I'm going to be forced to make the poor sap betray everything he ever stood for ;).

I didn't find the codex or quest books too annoying myself, but I haven't played very far along and had to dig for much yet. I'll probably spend entirely too much time on this this weekend and have some more meaningful feedback then...

Regards,
Nydia

I don't mind the interface or have those issues but then I'm on a console, I guess I could see how that would be annoying doing point/clicky for me it's jsut a button or two :)

I admit the armor and armor styles leave much to be desired, I'm glad I started with a warrior b/c mages have crap for armor.

Pro-Tip.

Hold down Tab as you play.... you will be shocked at how much stuff you miss when you dont do this.

That's a great interface, hold down a key 100% of the time or fail.

>shrug<

Doesnt really bother me at all, my pinky naturally falls on my tab on my kb.

Alternatively.. scan every room that you are in with Tab... tap it once in a while.. whatever..

Oh, another thing to add to the 'good' list - that you can make a character, since you're going to be forced to watch it for dozens of hours, that actually looks interesting, and by 'interesting' mean 'something other than just post pubescent and model beautiful'. My mage is rocking the Susan Sarandon late '40s sunken yet very feminine eyes and sallow complexion look, although I wish I'd taken more time on the jawline ;)...

Regards,
Nydia

Plenty of games seem to employ the 'hold the key down all the time' method, which drives me crazy. I wonder if I can program my Nosotro to do it? It is stupid to not give some sort of option or toggle for that sort of thing.

Just get a piece of tape and tape the key down :)

I laugh now at having used to have a trainer-style program that did that in Win95, before the whole StickyKeys debacle, from before the days of Auto-Run in RPGS :> I'm sure there are more modern implementations of the idea, one thing you can jury-rig is setting a gamepad or programmable mouse handler to always send that key when you do a directional movement.

I also had a hacked keyboard routine on the Apple II for Wasteland, which did a rest-tick (ESC) every time you hit a movement key, which was much better than the alternative solution of sitting something heavy on the key.

I was surprised at how the stuff I missed without using the tab key when I started in on my 2nd playthrough. Usually I relied on sparklies to alert me to things that warranted my attention, or a fairly obvious blue glow when I mouse over things.

Its mainly been codex entries that I've missed, but a couple of quests slipped through my fingers too.

Fair comment, Kelraz. If you dont pay for it, what right do you have to complain?

/rant on

Okay, I *did* pay for the game, and spent 6 hours in it yesterday, and I'm gonna complain. Maybe I just haven't given this game enough time, but two big ones:

1) The number and length of cinematic sequences is out of hand and kills the sense of active participation in the game. If I'd wanted to pay 60.00 to watch a movie, I could go to the Met Live in HD three times for that (Tosca was awesome btw) and actually see decent acting for that many hours in the seat.

2) The combat crawls on the early missions are... tedious beyond belief. How much of 'move 20 yards (feet indoors ;) ), fight five not-actually-orcs-we-promise' grind can a person take before they lose their sanity? Also, you don't appear to actually be able to use line of sight to, you know, lure mobs to where *you* want them (they'll just sit there with their little red rings lit up forever not attacking despite the fact they know you're there too), but are forced to make a suicide charge into enemy missile/spellfire nearly every single time.

Also, again, maybe I just haven't gone far enough (wiped a few times to the ogre on top of the tower last night and went to bed, he always conveniently resists the shield bash/paralysis when I try to stop him from picking up the warrior and/or me ripping his guts out - the first real challenge or even near wipe I've had btw), but the game still doesn't feel 'open-ended' in the least and the responses to the chat dialogues seem merely to get you a slightly different flavor of nose-leading. My impressions are that this ain't no Baldur's Gate - that felt like an actual D & D world, where one could engage in a wide variety of adventures both banal and heroic and which seemed to hold limitless possibilities even as it meandered towards its climax. So far, more (cinematic extravaganza, epic proportions, etc) feels like much, much less.

I'm going to give it the weekend before consigning it to the trash heap, but the more I play the less impressed I am at this juncture. Such a shame, because the combat system itself (especially the tactics banks) is quite neat...

Regards,
Nydia

Need to use your mage on the ogre more.. CoC is your friend.

You can definity pull the mobs where you want them. I use LOS all the time.

On your Char Portraits there are two small buttoms.. one is 4 diamonds, that allows you to give individual movement orders or for the entire group. The other is a Hold Position/Free option.

To pull all I do is hide my group.. or position them where I want them (especially useful when opening doors), click hold position, then run my a toon to cast a spell, show face, or shoot something at my target, then run back to cover.

As far as the cinematic... make sure you have subtitles enabled.. hit ESC to flash it forward.

Once you clear the tower youll have quite a few more options.. I suggest Redcliff or the Mages Tower as your first stop.

Got the ogre down on my next attempt with 3 of the party still up - I think it was largely the luck of the RNG although I did tweak their tactics a bit (no paralyzes/weaknesses worked at all that time but got lucky that he did not do a 'grab' until late in the fight and I managed to avoid a couple of boulders. Holy cinematic melodrama! Hopefully the game will settle down into something more mundane, or interesting, now, although I see I'm still stuck with the whiny warrior for now ;)...

Regards,
Nydia

So the big question - is this game better than Fallout3 (which is my favorite RPGish game I've played lately)?

Dear Kelraz:

I'm out of the hardcore nosedragging now and in Lothering now and lying, intimidating, and persuading my way across the landscape - and have done a few side quest and picked up the quinari (sp). It feels a bit more like the BG line now (my party members are starting to bicker ;) ) but if you like the pacing of Fallout 3 you'll find that this moves... glacially, so as to whether it'd be 'better' is hard to say...

Regards,
Nydia

I really like the cinematic cut scenes but I guess I'm just a glutton, I personally like seeing my real avatar in those sequences in whatever armor I picked up. I think it's kind of spiffy.

If you're having issues with your party try customizing their AI and how they interact. I've been trying to flirt with my characters but I find that generally morighian hates everything that everyone else likes so it's kind of fun hearing her bitch at alistair.

I didn't like Fallout3 I thought the missions were drone and boring. I like the fantasy theme of this and the story line.

It gets much better after Lothering. If it helps, you can use Escape to move through dialogue quickly, although if it's not true dialogue and actually a movie you'll skip the movie if you're aren't careful. The party dialogues are great, just easy to miss if you play with the sound off, like me.

Have you played with the tactics window much? Setting someone like (Morgana?) to heal makes things much simpler. Some of the fights it's easier to play using a turn based system, commanding each character individually.

Some quest areas have extremely hard mobs you'll probably want to go back for. I found a couple in the forest - I finished the immediate quest, but had to go back later for the side stuff.

Kelraz, I don't think the two are really comparable. While Dragon Age totes itself as sandboxy, it most definitely isn't. There are several major plot points that you need (I think?) to visit, which cover the lion's share of time spent playing the game. The optional side quests take place within the purview of these, which makes the game a fairly linear structure aside from the order that you choose to visit them in.

I don't think this is a bad thing, but it definitely doesn't speak to fallout 3's open ended nature. As soon as you get out of the Vault, you're on your own basically. The combat in Dragon Age is a bit more directed than Fallout's as well, but on the other hand it feels like the character customization is a bit more directed.

In general though, I've enjoyed Dragon Age more than I enjoyed Fallout 3, but I'm a sucker for an RPG of this style because I loved Baldur's Gate 1/2, NWN 1/2 and KoTOR.

Gotta get a party of Zev (the Elf Assassin), Ogrehn (the Dwarf Warrior) or Leliani and Morrigan. Much laughs. All they do is sexually harrass Morrigan.. its pretty funny.

Sten/Shale, the Old Woman and Allistar just harrass her.

Just picked up Shale. He's a badass.

Shale is sweet. Backstory for em is really awesome too. Plus, whenever I hear "death to all PIGEONS" I start laughing.

him?

http://social.bioware.com/browse_bw_projects.php

I just found this - mods for the game. It's disturbing how many are for nude models or prettier faces. The first one however is a chest for the party camp. I haven't tried it yet, but that's where I'm headed next time I log in.

I was kinda "meh" about this, after slogging through the intro storyline for my race/class, but it actually did pick up nicely.

Last night, I got sucked into The Fade (I think?) by the sloth demon while going through the Mage tower. The breadth of the scope of the game is pretty impressive so far.

If you don't want drag, whatever you do, don't go through Denerim. It's impossible to move from one quarter to the next without having an ambush encounter straight out of a kung fu movie (thousands of low level thugs charge you ;) ).

I've gotten used to the conversation animation screens, but even with repeated tweaking of the tactics on my characters, the combat has to be micromanaged to a degree that makes even uncomplicated fights last a looooong time...

I found that setting everyone to attack "controlled character's" target and having a healer that heals anyone below 75% did away with most of the micromanagement so far. The tactics stuff is just powerful enough to really be useful.

And yeah, I just ESC through an awful lot of the dialog. It's easier to infer the storyline from the context of the speech choices than it is to suffer through the General Hospital voice acting dragging on 5x longer than is reasonable.

Also, I'm broken-hearted that I went straight back to Duncan to talk to him after getting out of the woods in that Grey Warden initiation task and so never got to do my flower handin for the dog's medicine :/. I've been schlepping around a couple of bones, a collar, and some war paint for him in a vain hope that he'll still be there when I can get back...

The Fade was a pretty neat section, and warrants being thorough in :).

The Fade is sweet. Really brings out the idea of "army of one" because you can shapeshift into so many different forms. Though with each island's end, I would just use crushing prison and then shift through every form's attacks... >_<

I really liked the followup to Redcliffe's initial story, the quest for the "holy grail" of the game.

Unfortunately Nydia, I think you're out of luck on the dog. Insofar as I know if you don't help him out at the beginning of the game, he's gone forever. :( I heard there's going to be a new mod by Bioware to let you return to Ostagar, so maybe that will help you out.

I wouldn't worry too much about the dog. Maybe I just didn't develop him enough, but he seemed like a giant wimp compared to all of the other party members I picked up so far.

A couple things I do with the massive amounts they throw at you.

2 mages.

Start with Sleep and Earthquake.. then throw in Blizzard and Another huge AE. (If you hit spellpower + the electrical AE, you get "Storm of the Century which is a hidden combo.) Deathcloud is really nice as well.

Anything that slips through gets hit with Cones of Cold + Stonefists or Shale slams them for insta gib shatters.

Also.. making sure you are FAR away from your people.. hit Rune of Repulsion + Rune of Paralyization.. hits another combo... really really nasty 15 second mega stun...

Actually.. while im at it.. here are the combos.

Primal Grease Fire Grease + Any Fire Spell The grease is set on fire causing minor damage to anyone within while they remain in the area, but the grease effect is lost. Friendly fire is possible.
Flame Quencher Grease Fire + Blizzard Grease Fire is eliminated.
Storm of the Century Spellmight + Blizzard + Tempest Increased lightning damage with a larger radius. Eliminates the Blizzard effects (i.e. knockdown and freeze).
Shattering Petrified/Frozen Enemy + Critical hit/Stone Fist/Crushing Prison Instant kill (higher levels can resist)
Paralysis Explosion Overlapping Glyph of Paralysis + Glyph of Repulsion An instant, large radius, long duration paralysis AOE. Both the glyphs are consumed in the process. Friendly fire is possible.
Nightmare Sleep + Horror The target takes heavy spirit damage, but the sleep effect is lost
Improved Drain Vulnerability Hex + Drain Life/Drain Mana Drain Life/Drain Mana do 2x the damage.
Entropic Death Death Hex + Death Cloud Truly massive spirit damage
Shockwave Force Field + Crushing Prison Damages and knocks back everyone except force-field target, very hard to resist. (Enemy target only - Works if casting Force Field on an ally that has Crushing Prison)
Advanced Reanimation Spell Might + Animate Dead More powerful skeleton with special abilities

I wouldn't worry too much about the dog. Maybe I just didn't develop him enough, but he seemed like a giant wimp compared to all of the other party members I picked up so far.I was excited about the dog too, but I never take him. He just isn't that interested...no fun dialogue that I noticed. A few convenient abilities, but I prefer the banter of any of the other warriors.

I wouldn't worry too much about the dog. Maybe I just didn't develop him enough, but he seemed like a giant wimp compared to all of the other party members I picked up so far.

He's not really a wimp, but his dialog is pretty wimpy. He eventually learns Overwhelm, which can be used to shred an enemy caster, as well as Shred to stun. He's pretty powerful. And adorable. :o

Okay, I didnt really read the manual at all so I'm pretty clueless about the combos.

Are these things that can be macro'ed or do I need to click in order on the appropriate characters?

I'm doing the mage tower now and really enjoying it. I did Redcliffe and then a portion of Denerum, but as Nydia mentioned, I got frustrated with all the low level swarming that you get hit with moving from section to section.

I am looking forward to getting sucked in to the Fade portion in the mage tower, sounds like fun!!

The spell combos can't really be macroed insofar as I know, though I've set up tactics for one of my mages and my melee characters to use certain attacks to trigger the combos if necessary. Like for mage if immobile -> stonefist or crushing prison, melee characters use auto-critting moves on em.

Ah, gotcha, I will definitely set those up then. Sounds like it makes life a little bit easier.

Word of warning though, crushing prison + force field is not fun times. Also, glyph of paralysis + glyph of repulsion is also not fun times if you didn't mean to do it.

Crushing Prison + Force Field on the same person yields a telekinetic explosion, which knocks everyone down and does damage. It cancels both spells though, which is shitty because it puts two great CC spells on CD without getting the full effect from both. Also has friendly fire.

Paralysis + Repulsion glyphs that overlap yield the same effect as a mass paralysis centered around the glyphs. Useful if you're planning to do it but if it happens by accident it kind of screws you over too.

With these two, you can do them in either order (Crushing Prison -> Force Field or Force Field -> Crushing Prison, etc) but with Shattering in particular they have to be frozen/petrified first.

I usually do cone of cold -> stonefist, crit moves on anyone that got frozen and all of a sudden I'm fighting 2 to 3 less enemies a fight. Sleep -> Horror is one of my favorites too, it does ridiculous damage. I think somewhere close to 200 is the best I've gotten with it.

Personally I did not enjoy the Fade at all. I used a guide to race through it. It was too much "one misstep and you get gibbed" and "you have no idea what to do next, dont you?"

There is a mod that lets you respec yourself or your team-mates.

Its hella fun.

3 rogues as Ranger/Bards with archery and with pets out + Mage in Bearform... Rarrrrrr!

Name and download location L2? Or is it "free only at docks"?

http://social.bioware.com/project/469/

I'm still on my first time through and never really read up on how to spec characters out. That respec mod = lifesaver.

Especially since archery is pretty horrible at the moment. I respecced Leliana out of 4 useless archery talents with it.

Agreed, that archery tree is useless. Not even worth putting one point in it. I was going to hold off on this mod, thinking my first time through would a "pure" run, but forget it. Will download this tonight, wheeee!!

Agreed, my hapless warriors seem to do just as well with their bows as she does with hers (although pinning shot has its occasional uses, it always seems to work better when the mobs do it ;) ), and I just put all her level points into other things. Actually, however, all the melee seems to serve for the most part as bait/window dressing while the real money is in stacking as many AoE bucket 'o destruction spells over the battlefield as possible (my current combo is paralyzation/repulsion + earthquake or Blizzard + Cloud of Death) while the tank's job is to line mobs up that make it through the curtain of death for Cone of Cold immobilization and shattering...

I'm in the very last dungeon of the dwarf portion of the adventure (Anvil of the Void) and I think that Ohgran has spent more time frozen than not ;)...

when I played as a mage, I used my warriors as lightning rods for my tempests and shock spells. Sometimes I'd get fancy and put a repulsion glyph in a doorway then throw tempest/inferno inside, but most of the time I'd create a maelstrom of doom with them at the center and just heal through it. Enemies that make it through get frozen solid.

Mana Clash is the single best spell imo. It freaking destroys demons and enemy spellcasters. Especially on Nightmare when they seem to have jacked up mana pools.